


They Know Not If It's Dark Outside, Or Light

by holdupjustnow



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 13:10:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18717736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdupjustnow/pseuds/holdupjustnow
Summary: A long, quiet moment draws out between them and Bucky realises it is the first time they have been alone together since 1945.And now. Now, Bucky feels very much like the old man he is. And Steve is the only thing in the world that makes sense.*After Civil War, before Bucky goes under the ice in Wakanda, Steve and Bucky take a moment to catch up.





	They Know Not If It's Dark Outside, Or Light

**Author's Note:**

> Because honestly, they definitely had a bit of time before Bucky went under. You telling me Steve wouldn't try talk Bucky out of it? Pssh.

He counts the turns. Left, left, right, left again. Old habit. They’re walking through T’Challa’s palace. Steve on his left, one of T’Challa’s men on his right. Two behind, two in front. Just in case he…just in case.

 

They’re lead into a spacious, modern room. A bed, a desk, bolted to the floor. No chairs, not even any glass he notes. Nothing he can make a weapon out of, and he supposes that’s the point. The walls are painted green, as if to make him feel like he’s outside. The king’s men leave the two of them there, in the sparse gussied up cell. And Steve, well he can always tell what Bucky’s thinking.

 

“The door’s not locked.”

 

“I know.”

 

Steve sighs and leans his shield up against a wall. “I brought us here because I think you’ll be safe. If you don’t feel safe, we’ll go.”

 

He doesn’t bother trying to explain. He can never _feel safe._ He barely understands what the word means, a concept beyond his imagining. He is the weapon, the one who incites fear in others. He is what people want to feel safe from.

 

The red book. The metal arm, crushing Stark’s blaster, wrapping around the Widow’s neck. He already knows he isn’t safe from himself.

 

“You made the right choice.” He tells Steve instead, because for reasons beyond his comprehension he likes to say things that put Steve at ease. Not totally beyond comprehension. Some days he remembers things better than other days. Not memories in truth, because they don’t feel like he owns them. Just a show reel of a man’s life that had taken place in this body. He wonders if one day they will feel like his, and if that’s something he wants or does not want.

 

He sits down on the bed. The sheets are silk and he runs his flesh hand on them. The metal arm has been detained, removed, severed. He’s glad to see it gone. Steve for lack of a better option sits heavily on the floor, his head lolling back to thunk gently on the wall. A long, quiet moment draws out between them and Bucky realises it is the first time they have been alone together since 1945.

 

There had been the plane ride to Siberia, but that had been crushed with deafening silence, the sort that settles over people before they go to war. There hadn’t been much to say then, when they were still being threatened. When it was easy to talk about the old days like they were decades ago and not just a few years gone in both their minds.

 

And now. Now, Bucky feels very much like the old man he is. And Steve is the only thing in the world that makes sense.

 

“When you woke up.” He starts, looking at Rogers. “Tell me about it.”

 

Rogers clasps his hands together, and frowns. “It was awful. No one knew how to talk to me, and I didn’t know how to talk back. So I did what soldiers do – I fell in line. It was hard, and it wasn’t the technology or the culture change.” Rogers smiles but it looks sad. “I had just been in a war. I was still there. One of the first things I asked them was, did we get Hitler?” That makes the both of them smile. One twisted sense of humour. “I wished I had asked for more help.”

 

He looks back at Bucky then, daring. He only stares back. Rogers asks, “What about you?”

 

“What about me.”

 

“When you woke up.”

 

“I don’t know if I have.”

 

Steve rolls his eyes, but he looks…fond. “Buck. Give yourself some credit.”

 

He likes to say things that put Steve at ease. He thinks back to when he first saw the man on the bridge, and all that came after. “I was…confused. Afraid. I was angry, at myself. That I couldn’t be free on my own. You’re the one who woke me up. I wish I could have done it myself, a long time ago.”

 

Steve doesn’t admonish him. He accepts what Bucky says, and Bucky doesn’t realise he’s holding his breath until he lets it go.

 

“You know, I missed you. For the first couple of weeks out of the ice, people kept talking _around_ me, like I up and forgot English. Sometimes I…sometimes I’d picture you standing there next to me, rolling your eyes and sassing them like when we were kids.”

 

“I don’t remember being kids.”

 

“Well, we were once. Take my word for it.”

 

Bucky shifts, shrugging his jacket off with his one arm and tosses it on the ground. The stump is on display now, but Steve has seen enough mem missing limbs to not look at it. He struggles a bit to take his shoes off, but is thankful Steve doesn’t offer to help. He gets himself up on the bed, sitting legs crossed.

 

“There were other men. Before.”

 

“The Howling Commandos!” Steve says with false bravado, his smile in full swing. “They missed you too. And me, after I went. They all had full lives. Wives and kids, growing old, all the good stuff.”

 

“All the good stuff.” Bucky says. “Did you do that? Get married, have kids?”

 

It wipes the grin right off Steve’s face, and he looks like a wounded animal. “No. There hasn’t been any time.”

 

“There’s been seventy years, Rogers. You need me to hold your hand through everything?”

 

It’s enough to shock Steve into a laugh. The way he looks at Bucky then, it makes him feel hot and cold at the same time. It makes him think Steve has looked at him like that before, many times. All the time.

 

“Would you have come back? If Zemo hadn’t come for us, bombed the UN. Would you have come back?” _To me._

 

Bucky doesn’t have to think about it for long. “No. I wasn’t made to be near you. I can’t change that.”

 

Steve sighs. “I wish you could see what I see.”

 

It truly is Bucky shooting himself in the foot when he asks, “What do you see?”

 

Steve doesn’t get up, doesn’t weep. He is a Captain at ease, an ancient creature, the longest serving king any country has seen. “I see you. Not just Bucky Barnes. I see the Soldier, the Howling Commando. God, Buck. You know what it is. I’m looking at myself. When I see you, I’m just looking in the damn mirror.”

 

_A frail boy. The Super Soldier. Captain America. Avenger. Terrorist. Steve Rogers._

“I’ll stay.” Rogers swallows and Bucky ignores the fear in his eyes. “We can work it out, I’ll help you.”

 

“They need you out there.”

 

“ _You_ need me.”

 

“Sam, he’s a good guy. He can’t make it out there alone.”

 

He can see Steve’s hands trembling. He wants to fight, change Bucky’s mind. He won’t. For all that has happened to them both, he knows the one thing he can’t ever take away from Bucky is his right to choose. For the first time in seventy years – a choice.

 

“Why don’t you show me something, something from the past. Something Bucky would have liked.” He says.

 

“Like what?” Steve asks.

 

“I’m guessing they kept making music and movies, and painting things after I fell off that train.”

 

Steve smirks. Bucky tries not to stare, but what use is that? He stares, and stares. Watches his face so closely as he pulls a device from his pocket, starts tapping away at it. Steve seems to know a lot about technology that Bucky doesn’t because after a minute of fiddling around music starts playing from who knows where in their room. Not from the device. It’s as clear as if there’s a man with a piano in the room with them.

 

“Sort of hard not to pick this stuff up when you hang around a bunch of geniuses.” Steve says by way of explanation.

 

_And now I know_

_Spanish Harlem are not just pretty words to say._

_I thought I knew_

_But now I know that rose trees never grow_

_In New York City._

 

He falls back against the bed, breathing in and out. Listens. Is this what music is now? It’s different, it’s wonderful, it’s worth every bit of all the waste and blood and everyone single one of Steve’s split knuckles when they were kids.

 

 _This Broadway's got_ __  
It's got a lot of songs to sing  
If I knew the tunes I might join in  
I'll go my way alone  
Grow my own, my own seeds shall be sown, in New York City

 

The bed shifts, Steve’s weight joining him. They lay side by side. Bucky can feel him there. He can hear his heart beat. Or is it his own? Is there a difference?

 

No. The Captain and the Soldier. At ease, men. They are one. The only two people left on Earth made up of the stuff that they are – chemicals and mud. Old and new. Broken and put together over and over.

 

 _Subway's no way for a good man to go down_  
Rich man can ride and the hobo he can drown  
And I thank the Lord for the people I have found  
I thank the Lord for the people I have found

 

“The future, huh?” Bucky chokes.

 

“The fucking future, pal.” Steve’s hand finds his on the covers and he doesn’t hold his hand, just grips his wrist. It’s enough. “We won the war.”

 

Bucky laughs and loves the feeling of tears falling down his cheeks. He can still cry. “It was worth it.”

 

“Do you have to go?”

 

Bucky takes Steve’s hand in his. He lifts it and places in on his chest so he can feel Bucky’s heart beating. Fast, faster. Alive. The music swells then slows, a proud piano finding rest. How ridiculous this life is, and how ridiculous that he gets to sit beside Steve right then. It’s more than he could have dreamed of, even back in ‘45.

 

“They’re playing my song.”

 


End file.
